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Senior Citizen Stars
Five $100,000 Prizes go to Older Americans for
Finding New Ways to Meet Society's Greatest Challenges
Civic Ventures Presents awards for creative
entrepreneurship by seniors
September 5, 2006 - Civic Ventures, a think tank
and program incubator helping society achieve the greatest return on
experience, today announced the five winners of its first-ever Purpose
Prize, a major new initiative to invest in Americans over 60 who are
leading a new age of social innovation. Each winner will receive
$100,000, the first significant investment in this undiscovered force
for the greater good. (Two prizes will be shared by pairs of
co-winners.)
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The Purpose Prize winners are using their
experience and entrepreneurial skills to help solve long-standing
problems, including intolerance, racial disparities in preventable
deaths, job opportunities for the disabled, housing needs of the elderly
poor, and the disrupted lives of millions of children who have a parent
in jail.
"It's conventional wisdom that young people drive
entrepreneurialism and innovation, but the Purpose Prize winners turn
that outdated notion on its head," said Marc Freedman, founder and
President of Civic Ventures. "These inspiring men and women illustrate
an emerging trend in our society, as millions of aging Americans turn
their experience and passion for change into meaningful work in the
second half of life."
Seventy older social innovators -- the top five
percent of the 1,200 Purpose Prize applicants -- have been invited to
participate in a "Purpose Prize Innovation Summit," September 7-9, at
Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. The event is cosponsored
by Civic Ventures and the Stanford Graduate School of Business' Center
on Social Innovation, one of the world's leading academic centers
focused on social entrepreneurship.
At the Summit, social innovators can learn from
presenters and one another, build a network that will link and support
innovators working in the second half of life, discuss ideas with
funders and venture philanthropists, and explore how individual efforts
can create a wave of social innovation that could transform America.
The five Purpose Prize winners and 10 finalists can
also apply for support of their work from Civic Ventures' new
million-dollar Fund for Innovation. Two foundations, The Atlantic
Philanthropies and The John Templeton Foundation, provided funding to
Civic Ventures for the Prize program and the new Fund.
"Today's boomers and older Americans are an
extraordinary pool of social and human capital that -- with the right
investment -- could yield unprecedented returns for society," said
Freedman. "Instead of being a lifetime achievement award, the Purpose
Prize is an investment in what these amazing individuals will do next to
solve important problems."
The winners -- selected by a jury comprised of 21
leaders in business, politics, journalism, the arts, and the nonprofit
sector -- include:
● Conchy Bretos (age 61, Miami, FL)
Bringing assisted living services to public housing
Born in Cuba and sent to America when Castro came to power, Bretos lived
in a Nebraska orphanage for three years before reuniting with her
parents. As an adult, she worked university and public sector jobs, then
became Florida's Assistant Secretary for Aging and Adult Services.
Appalled to see what poor, older adults endured to avoid nursing homes,
she became the force behind the nation's first public housing project --
the Helen Sawyer building in Miami -- to bring assisted-living services
to low-income adults who need help to stay in their homes. Today she
runs a consulting company that has helped 40 public housing projects in
a dozen states bring assisted-living services to their residents.
● Charles Dey (age 75, Lyme, CT)
Engaging high school youth with disabilities in the
world of work At 64, Dey had a long career in education and a record of
starting programs to ensure equal educational opportunity. Alan Reich, a
friend who founded the National Organization on Disability after an
accident left him a quadriplegic, told Dey to "do for young people with
disabilities what you did for minorities in the '60s." Dey created Start
on Success, a National Organization on Disability program providing paid
internships and workplace mentors to predominantly minority high school
students with physical, mental and emotional disabilities. Over 1,500
students have had internships at universities, hospitals and businesses
in five cities, and 85 percent have gone on to full-time jobs or further
education. Dey is working to expand Start on Success, while also
building the National Organization on Disability's efforts to help
disabled adults, including returning veterans, find jobs.
● Marilyn Gaston and Gayle Porter (ages 67
and 60, Bethesda, MD)
Empowering midlife African-American women to
improve their health With African-American women dying at rates greater
than any other group of U.S. women, Gaston and Porter were inspired to
stop many of these preventable deaths. Accomplished health
professionals, they created Prime Time Sister Circles - part support
group and part health course on exercise, nutrition and stress. The
meetings, taking place in convenient locations like churches and
community centers, encourage goal-setting, peer support and empowerment
to change how African-American women approach their health and the
health of their families and communities. Research in four cities shows
that 68 percent of participants maintain improved health.
● W. Wilson Goode, Sr. (age 68, Philadelphia,
PA)
Mentoring children of incarcerated parents In 2000,
former Philadelphia Mayor (1984-1992) Wilson Goode earned a Doctorate of
Ministry and became the director of Amachi, a nonprofit helping the 7
million children who have one or both parents in jail, on parole or
under supervision. Goode, whose own father went to jail for assaulting
his mother when Goode was 14, paired mentoring with faith-based
recruiting. He rallied pastors in African-American communities to
encourage their congregants to be mentors. Today more than 240 programs
in 48 states are affiliated or inspired by Amachi, and mentors have
helped 30,000 children. Without intervention, experts predict that as
many as 70 percent of children with incarcerated parents would end up in
jail.
● Judea Pearl and Akbar Ahmed (ages 70 and
63, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.)
Fighting intolerance, conflict and terrorism
through dialogue and exchange After terrorists murdered his son, Wall
Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, Judea Pearl, a computer science
professor at UCLA, teamed up with Akbar Ahmed, a professor of Islamic
Studies and envoy to Muslims in the U.S. and abroad. The two travel the
country to speak and lead dialogues on religious tolerance, linking
their stories to a call for reconciliation and providing a rare forum
for moderate Muslims in the U.S. Dialogue is central to the work of the
Daniel Pearl Foundation, which sponsors fellowships for journalists and
an Internet news service for high school journalists, advocates press
freedom, and organizes world music days to bring diverse people
together.
Notes:
Meet the 2006 Purpose Prize winners in their
first-ever public appearance as a group, presented by the Case
Foundation via live Webcast on September 7 at 2 p.m. ET / 11 a.m. PT.
Registration is open to the public. To register, go to
www.CaseFoundationWebcasts.org/PurposePrize.
About Civic Ventures
Civic Ventures is a think tank and program
incubator working to help society achieve the greatest return on
experience. To learn more, visit www.CivicVentures.org. For more
information about The Purpose Prize and the winners, visit
www.LeadWithExperience.org.
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